Google has updated its Maps app for Android devices to include the interiors of many stores, helping consumers more easily navigate their way around this holiday season.

Google has updated its Maps app for Android devices to include the interiors of many stores, helping consumers more easily navigate their way around this holiday season.

While Apple's map app failed to get basic roads and landmarks in place, Google is boasting its latest enhancement for Maps for Android, with indoor floor plans, fully labelled to help people find food courts, toilets, ATMs, and pretty much anything else that might be on a shopper's list.

The maps are not available for all interiors, but popular shopping locations, includings malls, will be accurately mapped, Google says. Select other stores will also be mapped, including Best Buy, Nordstrom, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Harrod's, Selfridges, and John Lewis, among other retailers.

It is not just shoppers who will see the benefit of indoor maps, however. Many railway stations, museums, universities, libraries, airports, casinos, hotels, and sports centres, among others, have already been given the Google Maps treatment.

In addition to simply knowing where you are and how to get from A to B, the app can tell users the quickest route from one store to another, a valuable tool considering the mad shopping rush that will occur over the next two months. Individual shops are also mapped by product, so women can find where the dresses are, while men can find which small corner the men's clothing is tucked away in.

So far indoor maps are available in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the US, with Google releasing a full list of available locations. This list will likely expand rapidly in the future, with Google calling on owners of stores and facilities to upload a floor plan to its database.